Tech Data goes Around the World in 60 Days to create summer sales

Tech Data's latest marketing campaign aims to help resellers beat the summer slump with a promotions for retail and SMB

Tech Data has kicked off its latest marketing promotion, called ‘Around the World in 60 Days’ which aims to beat the summer slump. The distributor is looking to boost sales among reseller partners during the usually quiet summer months with the campaign, which runs until the end of August.

Business can drop off by as much as 20% during the summer in the Gulf, according to Eliot Shepherd, marketing director of Tech Data. “It is a steady slide as you go into the hotter months, some of the vendors are apathetic, and tend to turn off the marketing funds in the summer, so this is our part in helping the resellers, and driving end user demand back up through the channel,” he said.

Around the World in 60 Days is themed around travel, with travel voucher prizes on offer for resellers, as well as spot prizes and Dubai Duty Free raffle vouchers. Resellers and Tech Data staff will compete in a virtual race around the globe, with points awarded for beating sales targets.

The campaign will include special offers from a number of vendor companies, including Cisco, HP, Microsoft, Computer Associates, APC, US Robotics and 3Com. It will take the form of weekly incentives for both resellers and Tech Data staff, with a different ‘country’ theme for each week of the eleven-week campaign. As well as sales and product promotions, Tech Data will also be providing end-user marketing support.

“From a reseller perspective we are offering them an incentive, trying to create a desire for our resellers to do more business with Tech Data,” said Shepherd. “This is incentive-based, and promotion-based, and we are also supporting the resellers, we are going to produce an end user catalogue. Whilst we don’t sell to end users, there is nothing to stop us marketing to end users. This is our part in helping the resellers, and driving end user demand back up through the channel.”

Overall, Tech Data intends to level out the dip in sales through the summer, Shepherd said. The promotions will be aimed at the SMB and retail segments, as these are the only segments that remain active during the summer, when enterprise and government tend to slow down operations.

“The campaign is more tailored towards the SMB and consumer segments, not the high end VAR or enterprise segment, because the decision makers basically have gone or they are not prepared to make a decision in the summer, so you are not going to see within the campaign anything that is about major infrastructure projects—it is the next tier down,” Shepherd said.

The campaign will also take advantage of Dubai Summer Surprises, the Government of Dubai’s scheme that aims to provide activities and entertainment to boost tourism and shopping in the Emirate during the summer. Tech Data will be launching retail promotions to fit with Summer Surprises, and to capitalise on other segments of the retail market in the region.

“There is an interesting segment of the market that we can appeal to, and that is if we take our retail focus—all the men in Dubai whose wife and kids have gone, and who want something to do, are inspired by offers in Plug-ins or CompuMe or those kind of retailers, and there is business—business doesn’t stop around the region,” he concluded.